


Interlude

by dreamfighter



Category: Dissidia: Final Fantasy
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:08:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24108757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamfighter/pseuds/dreamfighter
Summary: Terra likes a lot of things about Cloud. (repost)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	Interlude

**Author's Note:**

  * For [melonpaan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/melonpaan/gifts).



She chances a sideways glance at him as they walk, feet trudging maybe a bit tiredly but still resolutely against the barren land they've been traveling on for some time now. It feels like an eternity and a day. He walks a few steps to her right, and Terra likes how he's neither ahead nor behind her. 

Being the only female in the group—a frail-looking one at that, although by now all of them had been witnesses to the terrible power she contained inside herself—had its certain disadvantages and not too many advantages. Her friend, the Onion Knight, (although they were all friends, weren't they?) always sought her out first after a battle. Zidane always seemed to catch her when she was looking particularly pensive and would automatically assume that she was sad. Though the others rarely spoke, at least to her, she could feel their protectiveness around her, sometimes cloyingly thick that she'd feel like she wanted to get away. Ironically, the person who had protected and helped her when she most needed it was the one who didn't let it show.

When she next looks at him, he is glancing at her at the same time, and Terra could feel her cheeks go warm at being caught—but caught at what? Surely there was nothing wrong with looking? "What is it?" he asks, and she decides that she really likes the way his voice is low and quiet, for the rare times when he would actually speak. She couldn't remember how they'd ended up somehow a few steps behind the rest of the group, or if it was her who had fallen into step beside him or vice versa; for once, her friend wasn't by her side and all of them seemed lost in their own thoughts. 

"Cloud," she says, not to call his attention because she already had it, but because she likes his name and the way it sounded. "What's your favorite—" She meant to say 'flower', really, picking up from an earlier conversation about Firion's wild roses, but ended up saying, "—color?" instead. Perhaps it was because the world had been devoid of it lately. Destruction seemed to be a color itself, and the only color there was. 

If he thinks the question is strange, he doesn't let it show (does he ever let anything show, really?). As he seems to ponder on his answer, Terra allows herself to look at him freely, thinking that she's never seen him smile before, either. An enigma, she thinks. The Warrior of Light is dedicated, Bartz is free-willed, Squall is a loner (I am frightened, she adds mentally)—Cloud is none of those. He is simply what he is.

"I like..." he speaks up again, and she thinks that she likes, too, how each word that he speaks seem to have weight and meaning, something well thought-of, "...the color of people's eyes."

Terra blinks.

"Eyes are the window to a person's soul," Cloud explains, lifting both palms upward in his own version of a shrug. "I can't recall where I've heard that before. But I think it's true. It shows you who they are. What they want."

"Oh." She wishes she could say more in response to what he'd said, but it was really all she could do to still keep walking as her brain registers that he'd been looking right into her eyes when he'd spoken. She wonders just what could he see in her eyes—nothing but his own reflection, and did that reflect her own want? Abruptly she tears her gaze from his, looking at the ground and hands clasping behind her back, all in the manner of a girl who had embarrassed herself.

Moments later or maybe another eternity and a day, she glances at him again and thinks she sees a ghost of a smile on his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> Just posting an old work. Originally written Dec. 2010.


End file.
